Hey everyone! The same night of the lantern festival, I went to a temple parade at another location in Hualien. It featured worshippers, performers and idols from different temples around the area:
Here a procession is followed by tall gods (they are called 七爺八爺):
Close-up of an idol (五府千歲）:
Floats lit up in neon accompanied by a band and a dancing idol:
Presenting offerings to the idol:
People crawling under the god of wealth to accrue his blessings for the new year:
Assorted other gods (sorry, I’m not very knowledgable about them)
（八家將）Performers from a local temple:
Pimped out ride playing a techno remix of Tokyo Drift:
Lanterns from a display:
Stuck behind the slow-moving idol carrier on the way back!
“We are completely sold out of surgical masks and [sanitizing] alcohol”
Sign for foot massages
Food Panda, which along with UberEats has taken Taiwan by storm just as other services have done in China
Daily garbage truck rounds – the trucks play Fur Elise and you have to run behind them to dispose of your trash
All along the watchtower – a watchtower for a Japanese colonial era prison which has been turned into a park
The other surviving watchtower in the prison
Taiwanese Starbucks food menu – they have flatbread pizza and pasta!
Temple night on Lantern Festival – Year of the Rat
“Gold paper” to burn for your ancestors for them to receive the blessings of wealth
Temple shots
This is a 結緣 bookshelf/library in the temple, with a lot of free literature on Buddhist/Daoist teachings and other religious texts relevant to worship. I got some of my own:
Incense – I didn’t take pictures of the deities directly, at least not this time
For next time, I have some videos of a lantern festival parade…various deities and their holy entourages
Now, the current trip in Taiwan as I wait out the coronavirus on the Mainland
Fort “Red Hair,” which is what the locals called a Dutch colonial fort in Northern Taiwan. There are a few other forts around Taiwan dating from the Golden Age of Exploration (including Spanish ones).
Taiwan has been colonized repeatedly and only marginally under the control of the Ming rebels and later the Qing dynasty. When the island was returned to Chinese rule after World War 2, there was a lot of resentment among the locals for the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan. There still is…
The adjacent building became the British Ambassador (Consulate?) residence after World War II. They had a dandy exhibition about British fashion, tea culture, tennis etc.
Even more Japanese colonial architecture in Northern Taiwan
Guanyin Mountain, across the Tamsui river where I used to live
Tamsui is a popular street food location
“Oxford College”
Self-explanatory
I toured Taroko Gorge again, a massive canyon in Hualian, Taiwan
More monkey business
Cat in a box
Asparagus juice – complete with picture of caucasian babe bending over. It’s an ok beverage
I am writing from Hualian (Eastern Taiwan) and Taipei, Taiwan. This is after the Chinese central government extended the Spring Festival holiday and the Shanghai Municipal government delayed the opening of businesses even more until February 9, because the coronavirus is really doing a number on the country.
Taiwan only has 10 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of this writing, with almost 200 cases in Shanghai and counting. One death in Shanghai: It’s mainly been older people and or individuals with pre-existing conditions passing away, but it’s hard to tell who the rest of the people are. Facemasks are no longer readily available in Taiwan, with the government limiting everyone to purchasing only 1-3 masks per store per day, and forbidding the export of masks to China. Weird flex but ok. In addition, I will only be able to bring up to 5 boxes of facemasks (50 per box) to China, not that I can find that many anymore.
“Please leave N95 masks for medical personnel”
Forget about the virus, I’m just worried that there won’t be enough food when I get back, but from what I can tell online at least some people seem to be out and about back in Shanghai, much to the detriment of local quarantine efforts. It’s hard to keep people indoors for more than a week.
Anyways, I was in Taiwan for Christmas as well, so here is a two-part photo essay combining those times and the current stay. Enjoy!
Oyster pancake in the night market, which is a pancake made of egg, spinach, yam powder/paste and oysters with some orange sauce added.
Night market, where I had other food like fried chicken, pork’s blood cake, bird’s eggs, etc.
F-16s climb into the blue sky from a Taiwanese base in Hualian
Beach in Hualian
Not so appealing – grab a doll, except it’s a cockroach
Cats on rooftops of Japanese colonial era houses – Taiwan was a Japanese colony from the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 to the end of World War II in 1945. It retains a lot of Japanese influence even today
More Japanese houses, now owned by the Taiwanese government/military
Election posters for Han Guo-Yu, who did not win, above a betelnut stand, a common sight in Taiwan
More Japanese colonial architecture, which later became an officer’s club for the American military after the end of WWII
